Thinking About Purchasing ProductCart

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   Hi,
I am seriously  thinking about purchasing the software and wanted your feedback on how difficult formatting the look and feel of store would be for someone with no programming experience. I can not afford to hire a  reseller to do this portion for me although I WOULD purchase the $50 setup service but I think that would only get the store files set up.  

The demo control panel seems simple so I won't have any problem with the data creation/input but I don't see much info on building the look and feel of the store. Is it just as simple as drag and drop or choosing preset items? 

One of the features I would love to have on my homepage is when someone puts their mouse over a category on the home page they would see a drop down menu to choose from. I don't know the technical term but eg, on ProductCart.com homepage if you hover over "shopping cart software" you see "Our ASP shopping carts" "ProductCart" "Product Cart Build To Order" etc below. Is that difficult to integrate if I have no programming knowledge? If so, what is the closest to this concept I could realistically expect? (eg, could I create it like the demo with a plus/minus sign to expand/contract the category?--not as attractive to me)

The program seems very comprehensive but what I like the most is how the sample stores I have seen look--they emote cleanliness and quality. But is that because resellers have formatted the sites or were regular non experienced folks like me able to create such websites?

Would appreciate feedback from other newbies specific to the ease/difficulty of formatting the structure and  features on  their site. 

Thanks, 
Maria

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maria Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12-July-2008 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote maria Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Thinking About Purchasing ProductCart Posted: 12-July-2008 at 2:21pm
	Hi, I am seriously thinking about purchasing the software and wanted your feedback on how difficult formatting the look and feel of store would be for someone with no programming experience. I can not afford to hire a reseller to do this portion for me although I WOULD purchase the $50 setup service but I think that would only get the store files set up. The demo control panel seems simple so I won't have any problem with the data creation/input but I don't see much info on building the look and feel of the store. Is it just as simple as drag and drop or choosing preset items? One of the features I would love to have on my homepage is when someone puts their mouse over a category on the home page they would see a drop down menu to choose from. I don't know the technical term but eg, on ProductCart.com homepage if you hover over "shopping cart software" you see "Our ASP shopping carts" "ProductCart" "Product Cart Build To Order" etc below. Is that difficult to integrate if I have no programming knowledge? If so, what is the closest to this concept I could realistically expect? (eg, could I create it like the demo with a plus/minus sign to expand/contract the category?--not as attractive to me) The program seems very comprehensive but what I like the most is how the sample stores I have seen look--they emote cleanliness and quality. But is that because resellers have formatted the sites or were regular non experienced folks like me able to create such websites? Would appreciate feedback from other newbies specific to the ease/difficulty of formatting the structure and features on their site. Thanks, Maria

netprofits Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Certified ProductCart Developers Joined: 05-January-2006 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 22	Post Options Post Reply Quote netprofits Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 12-July-2008 at 3:01pm
	Hi Maria, We are a Product Cart certified developer so this post comes from that perspective. You don't need to have experience with programming to setup the design for your store BUT you do need to be able to create an HTML page with your graphics. You will also need to be somewhat familiar with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as almost all formatting is handled by CSS. Early Impact created a PDF that explains in detail what is involved with integrating a web design/site into Product Cart. It is located here: http://www.earlyimpact.com/productcart/support/index.asp#manuals Go to this link and click on "Integrating ProductCart v3 with your Web site" to read it. If that explanation is ovewhelming then you probably wouldn't be able to integrate a design into Product Cart. If it seems OK, then you should be fine. The demo stores look clean because a graphic designer created a nice web design and that design was used to create the Product Cart template for those sites. Those designs do not come with Product Cart when it is intalled. There is NO drag and drop for creating a design or placing elements into the design. Product Cart comes with one prebuilt template that works without modification and that has most of the features of the demo stores. It is not fancy but it is functional "out of the box". It has a header, left and right columns, a center content area and a footer. The default template includes the category navigation with the plus signs, content page list, small shopping cart, recently viewed products, product search, my account, etc. The "drop down menus" feature would require programming and a very good knowledge of HTML and CSS. Personally we find integrating a design into Product Cart fairly easy BUT we have built over 60 Product Cart sites and have a lot of experience building web sites. But we have clients who have tweaked their own store designs without much trouble as long as they were somewhat familiar with HTML and CSS. I hope this helps and I hope you get some feedback from other store owners who have integrated their own designs into Product Cart.
	NetProfits Internet Consulting Certified ProductCart Developer Our Site

maria Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Newbie Joined: 12-July-2008 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote maria Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 12:10pm
	Thanks for the thorough input. I was hoping to get another perspective from a non-professional user but as there have been a number of reads on this topic for the past week and no additional comments I'm thinking that it really will be too difficult for me. Particularly given your suggestion to read the PDF for which I was basically clueless. So I guess it's back to the drawing board to find an easier program to work with where I won't have to design my website but with which I will be able to add features for my customers (like product reviews, history trail, gift registry, gift reminder service, zooming photos, related products...). Unfortunately until the economy turns, professional services are not an option. But I'll keep your company in mind NetProfits. Thanks for the feedback. If anyone else would like to chime in I'll check back periodically for more input on ProductCart or an alternate suggestion. Best of luck to all, Maria

Hamish Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: 12-October-2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 56	Post Options Post Reply Quote Hamish Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18-July-2008 at 1:19pm
	Hi Maria, There are plenty of people using product cart who have little or no programming and limited web design. Almost all e-commerce solutions, ProductCart included, benefit from a custom look to the pages, but to do miminum customisation of the look only takes a short while (Custom Header & footer which determine the look of your site) - If you already have a website, then it's a good starting place for your design. Out of the box you get more functionality, flexibility and ease of use than pretty much any other cart I have come across. Regarding menus, you can style them in many ways, but the standard (+/-) one is pretty good & is suitable for many stores. There's nothing to stop you getting a site up and running very quickly and then polishing it's look to match what your desired final end result over time. The features on display are mostly a matter of selections in the admin panels.
	Editing ProductCart Code? See WIKI Guidelines for Editing ProductCart's ASP Source Code